On Flying In A B-17

The Lady Wants to Fly, Weekly Standard, November 9, 2015. "In the Second World War, flying in a Boeing B-17—the iconic Flying Fortress—was dangerous beyond belief. Of the 12,731 bombers produced between 1937 and 1945, 4,754 were lost or written off in the course of operations, a loss rate of 37 percent. Ten Americans, the B-17’s standard crew, risked death on every mission. To fly in the plane is to remember that, and them. But what was a horror in 1943 is an honor today, for only 10 flying B-17s remain—1 in Britain, the other 9 in the United States. Of these, the finest, the most nearly fully original, is Yankee Lady, restored and owned by the Yankee Air Museum in Willow Run, Michigan, 35 miles west of Detroit. In late September, I joined a crew of seven museum volunteers for a roundtrip flight to London, Ontario."

Willow Run Hums Again

Up From the Ashes, Weekly Standard, November 24, 2014. "There aren’t a lot of four-lane highways in rural Michigan. But the vast field a few miles east of Ypsilanti once needed a wide road. It was the site of Ford’s Willow Run plant, the heart of the Arsenal of Democracy. And now it’s becoming America’s first museum dedicated to the World War II production miracle that armed and saved the free world."